Product Reviews

Businesses who bill by time tend to either scrupulously maintain supporting paperwork to track jobs and produce invoices, or rely on a large dollop of guesswork. Both may be consigned to history with the release of Fujifilm's Valiano Business Management System (VBMS), a time and user-tracking application targeted at repro houses and production departments.

VBMS tracks time spent on a job from estimate to invoice. It comprises three main components: central Administration and Management modules, and time-logging applications on client machines. The Administration module is the core of VBMS. It is made up of a series of linked FileMaker Pro databases, which act as a central repository for client and supplier details, and as a source of estimate and invoice generation. As job jacket information is generated by client applications, the module polls the TCP/IP or AppleTalk network at user-defined intervals to update the information it holds.

Lone Manager

Like the Administration module, the VBMS Manager resides on a single machine. As well as storing and listing job information from client machines, it allows you to set job tracking preferences for each one. Although there isn't a free choice of applications to examine, VBMS can track Word, Excel, GoLive and Dreamweaver, as well as most graphics programs, via plug-ins, which extends its appeal to accounts departments and Web designers.

From a single dialog, the Manager module offers access to such options as the ability to ignore tracking if a client machine opens a document and views it without making changes. Once preferences have been set, settings are exported to a client machine by generating a unique installer program for each. It's a limiting, but undeniably effective, means of ensuring each one tracks time differently, and also prevents settings being altered locally - although clients can view applicable preferences, they can only be changed in the Manager module.

The client application, which runs under Windows

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and Classic environments, but not natively in Mac OS X, is designed to log time spent on a job, and requires little user intervention. Once installed, whenever a document from specified applications is opened - or closed - a job jacket is automatically generated, prompting the user to enter client and costing information, with many details automatically filled in or selectable from drop-down menus. This is an almost foolproof method of ensuring that every job is correctly allocated to a cost centre (users are prohibited from working on another job until the jacket is complete), and it imposes very little overhead, requiring only 1.2Mb of RAM.

Manual labour

The client application also supports manual project tracking, through clicking a button on a floating Timer palette, which lets the user manually bill time to a job that otherwise would not be recorded. The Timer also includes a Batch button to track time spent in different applications and apply them to a single job.

Although the Administration module is only accessible on a single Mac, VBMS includes a Web view option, where networked users have access to a limited set of its features. By pointing a browser at the Mac hosting the FileMaker database, you can examine and amend customer and job details, depending on the user privileges granted in the Administration module.

VBMS is scalable - at least downwards. Single users can use a non-customisable personal edition, which comprises the Manager, Client and Administration modules with a built-in version of FileMaker Pro. Larger operators, who might require more flexibility, will have to wait: a Premium version, built around an SQL server core and a multi-site Enterprise version, are still under development.

Even the Standard edition reviewed here has occasional rough edges - useful add-ons such as the ability to invoice clients directly from the Administration module are still awaiting completion and the plug-ins for the client machines aren't always tested with the latest versions of the applications. The lack of OS X-native support perhaps isn't yet critical for many businesses, but there's little doubt that sooner or later it will be.

But these weaknesses apart, VBMS is a well-thought-out offering, appealing to overstretched editorial and production departments. It's far from cheap, but it certainly ensures fewer headaches when tracking job costs - and how valuable is that?

Price: Personal edition £395 (£464.13 inc VAT); Single administrator versions: two users £1390 (£1633.25 inc VAT), 10 users £2990 (£3513.12 inc VAT)